We woke up at 7am to drive to the Sihanoukville. I have a feeling that this town was named for the late king. I'll check on that and get back to you. It was really cool to go here because I gave some of my students a description assignment. They were to make a PowerPoint about a place that they've been and use as many ways to describe it as they could. It helped me see the gaps in their English so that I know what we can work on. Chakrya did her assignment on Sihanoukville; so you see, I had heard a lot about it.
We ended up leaving the house close to 8am. Yaya said that it takes 3 or 4 hours to get there depending on how fast you drive. Nobody wears seatbelts in Cambodia. You can fit as many people in your car as can hold onto it. We saw a few cars on the street that had hatchback trunks with people standing next to the boxes in the trunk. Here is why: You never go faster than 40 miles per hour.
It doesn't seem that slow while you're driving, but when you realize that we could have been there in 2 hours instead of 5...
we also probably would have died.
The land leading up to the seaside looks a lot like the drive from Mililani to North Shore on O'ahu. Same red dirt and trees- but the trees are further apart, the houses look more like East O'ahu, and the mountains are more distant. We came to the top of a hill and finally saw the line where blue meets blue. And breathing was easy. It was like reading a really good book, or looking at old pictures, or seeing an old friend. The air doesn't feel like an ocean, but I've lived on an island for a few years, where you smell ocean wherever you go.
The first thing we did was go to the market and get seafood. I've never had seafood. That's mostly true. Imitation crab. Poke. Laulau is made with seaweed. Mahimahi. Seaweed salads. Shrimp. That's the seafood I've had.
In the market you buy live fish. Crab. Squids. Eels. Starfish- you can eat those????? Big crabs. Shrimps.
We bought crab and squid and pineapple and baby bananas called 'achicken' and sauce of some sort and rice.
Then we went to the beach. At the beaches they have these little structures that have kitchens in them. Well, people live there. You take all the food you bought or caught, give it to the lady, and she makes your food. And it is incredible. We use their dishes, they have all the condiments and everything. The Khmer condiments of choice are chilli sauce and a little bowl of salt and fresh ground pepper that you squeeze part of a lime into.
My question, whenever I am given food, is 'How do I eat this?' Sometimes it's obvious and we all have a laugh. Other times it is not obvious at all and I'm glad I asked.
I like squid. It's really good. Crab it also delicious, but it is a lot of effort. By the time I'm done getting through the shell, I'm not as hungry as when I started.
As usual- spicy food, but not too bad because they used green peppers instead of red. Small favors.
Hawaii beach-
The floor near the shore ripples like a lake.
The sand is almost as gray as San Diego.
The water is as salty as the Great Salt Lake, maybe not quite, but it's pretty salty.
The water is flat like a lake.
The sand is tough.
The water is warm.
There are lots of boats.
This is like a local beach, if you will. Though, there are restaurants there now....not like you're thinking...more like the lady that cooked our food. That's a restaurant.
I'm always at a loss for what to do in water or at a beach. Without a boat, waverunner, surfboard, boogieboard, or lane lines what is there to do in water? Sit on inflatables? Boring. So I go to my fallback and find some poor kid to subject to swim lessons.
We had done this at the spa a few weeks ago. Yaya and Sunny showed me their floating and we worked on swimming more effectively. Resae screamed and screamed when someone wasn't holding him. He would. not. move. Don't ask me how I did it- I don't even know- but by the end of the day he had traveled to the different people in our group 30 times and thus proclaimed himself 'Winner'.
Resae is always 'Winner' which makes me 'Loser'. Who taught him these words? It was not me. I blame cartoons.
After the sun set, we showered and ate the leftover squid and crab from lunch. The lady had made us beef as well. Botevy asked me what the word was for when something was hard so that you could not chew it. 'We call it chewy'.
When we can't chew it, we call it chewy? Dear English- You're ridiculous.
We went to the hotel where I had probably the worst night sleep of my life.
It was even worse than when Hawaii was on Tsunami warning back when the big earthquake hit Japan. I've been reminiscing about that because when we got back this afternoon, that was the first thing I saw online- 'Earthquake in Canada: Hawaii on Tsunami watch'. It's a great memory. It was a terrible sleep. This was worse.
I'm not sick. The seafood sat well.
We made it back to Phnom Penh in time for 3pm Church where I play the piano for primary.
This year the Blizzards made it to Carpinteria with us and Dakota caught some crab and mussles. He and David boiled them Saturday morning and ate them for breakfast. We saw starfish (all sizes). We didn't eat them. Did you ask how they eat them?
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